Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Stevo
[Sounds, 31st January 1981. Words: Betty Page.]
Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE STEVO
VARIOUS ARTISTS
‘Some Bizzare Album’
(Some Bizzare Records SBLP1)
* * * *
FUTURISM: This is your loife. The vinyl proof: has Futurism got a future? Will the masses take to the electronic beat? Has Stevo got a winner on his hands? Ahh, Stevo, now there’s a name to conjure with…
In the dim and distant early months of 1980, a lone figure entered the Sounds scenario. Self-styled electro-entrepreneur Stevo, complete with his half a lank fringe, offered up a chart the like of which had never before been witnessed. Full of bands who didn’t fit the alternative label, weren’t smart enough to be on Rough Trade, who mostly favoured the use of synthesised music.
After much furrowing of brows in the editorial office, a voice came from the blue, proclaiming, “Let’s call it a Futurist Chart!” And so, a new cult was born. At first the embryonic electro scene was taken with a pinch of salt, but, week by week it gained in credibility and other so-called music papers took to discussing it as if it were their own. Young Stevo decided the thing to do was to bring these bands together on one album, a task which took him six months to complete, with the aid of Dead Good Records and finally a distribution deal with Phonogram, who obviously consider it’s futurism for keeps.
Facetiously dubbed “Modernism For Muthas” by the staff with, it’s actually better thought out than the legendary ‘Metal’ and more important than the ‘Hicks From The Sticks’ job because it sums up the state-of-the-art. It’s also the first time a bunch of brand new, like-minded bands have found themselves on record together.
What we find here is electronic dance music / electronic experimental music as opposed to the more disco-oriented, sophisticated Visages and Ultravoxes. First: a glimpse at the real 20 carat golden goodies…
Manchester’s own Illustration proffer an auspicious opener with ‘Tidal Flow’, a relentless, sad rhythm, concentrating on languid, echoing bass lines and distant, dreamy synths topped with a plaintive vocal. Magazine with a splash of U2. It’s haunting / daunting.
Depeche Mode go quite the opposite way with ‘Photographic’ and are the only featured band to really make their synths go with beauty, bouncy energy and harmony. Despite their remonstrations (see fab feature) [1] this definitely is like OMITD with its “Bright light / Dark room” chorus a la “Red frame / White light”. A good old singalong, though, as is B-Movie’s ‘Moles’, which is much more rock’n’roll than the rest – a living, breathing drummer rollocks along with a frantic virtuoso performance on the keyboards by Rick Holliday. Love the ‘Moles in holes / Underground / They can’t be found” tongue-in-cheek hookerama.
Soft Cell grow to be quite charming. ‘The Girl With The Patent Leather Face’ was recorded a while ago on just two tracks and thus is initially rather piercing but the Phil Oakey style of crooning vocals from Marc Almond (also credited for energetics!) soar away close to the edge singing a stunningly visual fetishistic lyric which’d look great on video: “The girl with the patent leather face / Is a psychopathic mental case / A target for the freaks and creeps / A reject from the human race / The girl with the patent leather face / Hangs around the mutant bars / She tampers with machinery / So other beauties crash their cars.” Pervy!
Of the not-so-quite-so-startling tracks, Neu Electrikk come up funky with ‘Lust Of Berlin’, heavy on the rhythm section and sketchy, jazzy guitar but lose out a little due to the obviously Ziggy-inspired vocal from Dee Sebastian. Naked Lunch needn’t have apologised so profusely for ‘La Femme’, even if it is very ‘Being Boiled’ in places. An uptempo, fun song, overlong but with a certain jiggy charm.
Blancmange take on Eno and / or Vinni Reilly at their own game in ‘Sad Day’ and end up with an instrumental that would make an ideal TV theme or cinema interlude musak. A melancholy little guitar track winds its way over a simple but effective synth / drum tape backing. Hank Marvin after a bereavement.
Jell features the legendary Eric Random thumping his bass and drums on ‘I Dare Say It Will Hurt A Little’ and Lynn Seed on distant, virginal choirgirl vocals. Bit of a rambling, acid-trip job on guitars and clarinet / melodica however. The Fast Set appear briefly doing the old T-Rex number ‘King Of The Rumbling Spires’ for the 80s and The Loved One are amusingly quasi-melodramatic on ‘Observations’, the seemingly po-faced ‘voice’ Dryden Hawkins also being pretentiously credited with “Audio induction units / Sonics / Period indication.” You’d have a pretty good time dancing to it in leg irons.
And so to the ‘whimsical confection’ dept. The The might appear moody and gloomy on first hearing the creeping bass line but the word plays are the highlight: “All this and more / All this and the Moors Murders… I scream in the sun / Ice cream in the Sunday Papers’. I give Blah Blah Blah the honour of taking up the rear. Their basic philosophy of blahism (hyperbolic and frothy talk or writing) can be observed in action during the nonsensical, quirky, Residents-oriented ‘Central Park’, a narrative relating the tale of a man walking in said park who sees a gentleman riding a horse with an aura about him. No one else sees this. Bizarre bass and tootling synth rattle on till Blah Ian decides: “Perhaps I had a migraine or something.” Sheer silliness.
The key to it all, perhaps, is that nobody takes themselves too seriously. As Tony from Naked Lunch says: “There are times when I think people have forgotten how to smile, laugh and just have a good time without violence.” I doubt if any of these bands would want anything more than to entertain, even if some of them indicate pretentions towards more subliminal ‘enjoyment’. No-one gets far without a sense of humour.
Very soon you too could follow the Some Bizzarers’ example: the ?40 synthesiser is on its way! Meanwhile, be content with this album, which looks to have got the balance between fun, dance and thoughtfulness. One small step for Stevo, a giant foot forward for Futurism (!).
[Sounds, 31st January 1981. Words: Betty Page.]
Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE STEVO
VARIOUS ARTISTS
‘Some Bizzare Album’
(Some Bizzare Records SBLP1)
* * * *
FUTURISM: This is your loife. The vinyl proof: has Futurism got a future? Will the masses take to the electronic beat? Has Stevo got a winner on his hands? Ahh, Stevo, now there’s a name to conjure with…
In the dim and distant early months of 1980, a lone figure entered the Sounds scenario. Self-styled electro-entrepreneur Stevo, complete with his half a lank fringe, offered up a chart the like of which had never before been witnessed. Full of bands who didn’t fit the alternative label, weren’t smart enough to be on Rough Trade, who mostly favoured the use of synthesised music.
After much furrowing of brows in the editorial office, a voice came from the blue, proclaiming, “Let’s call it a Futurist Chart!” And so, a new cult was born. At first the embryonic electro scene was taken with a pinch of salt, but, week by week it gained in credibility and other so-called music papers took to discussing it as if it were their own. Young Stevo decided the thing to do was to bring these bands together on one album, a task which took him six months to complete, with the aid of Dead Good Records and finally a distribution deal with Phonogram, who obviously consider it’s futurism for keeps.
Facetiously dubbed “Modernism For Muthas” by the staff with, it’s actually better thought out than the legendary ‘Metal’ and more important than the ‘Hicks From The Sticks’ job because it sums up the state-of-the-art. It’s also the first time a bunch of brand new, like-minded bands have found themselves on record together.
What we find here is electronic dance music / electronic experimental music as opposed to the more disco-oriented, sophisticated Visages and Ultravoxes. First: a glimpse at the real 20 carat golden goodies…
Manchester’s own Illustration proffer an auspicious opener with ‘Tidal Flow’, a relentless, sad rhythm, concentrating on languid, echoing bass lines and distant, dreamy synths topped with a plaintive vocal. Magazine with a splash of U2. It’s haunting / daunting.
Depeche Mode go quite the opposite way with ‘Photographic’ and are the only featured band to really make their synths go with beauty, bouncy energy and harmony. Despite their remonstrations (see fab feature) [1] this definitely is like OMITD with its “Bright light / Dark room” chorus a la “Red frame / White light”. A good old singalong, though, as is B-Movie’s ‘Moles’, which is much more rock’n’roll than the rest – a living, breathing drummer rollocks along with a frantic virtuoso performance on the keyboards by Rick Holliday. Love the ‘Moles in holes / Underground / They can’t be found” tongue-in-cheek hookerama.
Soft Cell grow to be quite charming. ‘The Girl With The Patent Leather Face’ was recorded a while ago on just two tracks and thus is initially rather piercing but the Phil Oakey style of crooning vocals from Marc Almond (also credited for energetics!) soar away close to the edge singing a stunningly visual fetishistic lyric which’d look great on video: “The girl with the patent leather face / Is a psychopathic mental case / A target for the freaks and creeps / A reject from the human race / The girl with the patent leather face / Hangs around the mutant bars / She tampers with machinery / So other beauties crash their cars.” Pervy!
Of the not-so-quite-so-startling tracks, Neu Electrikk come up funky with ‘Lust Of Berlin’, heavy on the rhythm section and sketchy, jazzy guitar but lose out a little due to the obviously Ziggy-inspired vocal from Dee Sebastian. Naked Lunch needn’t have apologised so profusely for ‘La Femme’, even if it is very ‘Being Boiled’ in places. An uptempo, fun song, overlong but with a certain jiggy charm.
Blancmange take on Eno and / or Vinni Reilly at their own game in ‘Sad Day’ and end up with an instrumental that would make an ideal TV theme or cinema interlude musak. A melancholy little guitar track winds its way over a simple but effective synth / drum tape backing. Hank Marvin after a bereavement.
Jell features the legendary Eric Random thumping his bass and drums on ‘I Dare Say It Will Hurt A Little’ and Lynn Seed on distant, virginal choirgirl vocals. Bit of a rambling, acid-trip job on guitars and clarinet / melodica however. The Fast Set appear briefly doing the old T-Rex number ‘King Of The Rumbling Spires’ for the 80s and The Loved One are amusingly quasi-melodramatic on ‘Observations’, the seemingly po-faced ‘voice’ Dryden Hawkins also being pretentiously credited with “Audio induction units / Sonics / Period indication.” You’d have a pretty good time dancing to it in leg irons.
And so to the ‘whimsical confection’ dept. The The might appear moody and gloomy on first hearing the creeping bass line but the word plays are the highlight: “All this and more / All this and the Moors Murders… I scream in the sun / Ice cream in the Sunday Papers’. I give Blah Blah Blah the honour of taking up the rear. Their basic philosophy of blahism (hyperbolic and frothy talk or writing) can be observed in action during the nonsensical, quirky, Residents-oriented ‘Central Park’, a narrative relating the tale of a man walking in said park who sees a gentleman riding a horse with an aura about him. No one else sees this. Bizarre bass and tootling synth rattle on till Blah Ian decides: “Perhaps I had a migraine or something.” Sheer silliness.
The key to it all, perhaps, is that nobody takes themselves too seriously. As Tony from Naked Lunch says: “There are times when I think people have forgotten how to smile, laugh and just have a good time without violence.” I doubt if any of these bands would want anything more than to entertain, even if some of them indicate pretentions towards more subliminal ‘enjoyment’. No-one gets far without a sense of humour.
Very soon you too could follow the Some Bizzarers’ example: the ?40 synthesiser is on its way! Meanwhile, be content with this album, which looks to have got the balance between fun, dance and thoughtfulness. One small step for Stevo, a giant foot forward for Futurism (!).
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